Cable TV savings?

A UC Berkeley professer said in a study today that he expects Bay Area consumers to save about $160 million to $235 million a year once AT&T (formerly SBC) starts offering a competitive cable television service.

Full disclosure: The study was commissioned by AT&T, which is battling to launch IPTV, a.k.a. Internet Protocol television, or cable television service through your telephone/DSL line, in the Bay Area.

Professor Yale Braunstein calculated that the monthly cable bill in the Bay Area is $57.38 per month and that it could drop 15 percent to $48.77 or as much as 22 percent to $44.76 if a competitor entered the market. That’s a savings of $8.61 to $12.62 per subscriber per month.

Of course, there’s already competition right now from satellite television carriers EchoStar (Dish) and DirecTV. The difference here is that once AT&T launches its television service, both AT&T and Comcast will be able to sell consumers a combination of television, telephone and high-speed Internet services.